A television show can be presented as a series of television episodes that are broadcast to television viewers at regularly scheduled intervals. A producer of a television show typically will produce one or more storylines that are presented over the course of multiple television episodes, where a given episode can present one or more significant events for at least one of the storylines. Hence, the presentation of storylines over multiple episodes enables the producer to maximize the attraction of the television series (and thereby optimize revenue generation) by encouraging audiences to continue watching all of the television episodes as they are initially broadcast, maximizing the attraction of the television series to optimize revenue generation. Such storylines also can be presented over multiple episodes using different media, for example radio, podcasting, etc.
The distribution of episodes for a given media series (e.g., a television series) can be controlled by the producer during the initial release of an episode to the appropriate distribution medium (e.g., live television, live radio, new DVD release, initial release via the Internet, etc.). However, users can record the episodes as they are released for later viewing (e.g., using a digital video recorder such as a set-top box); users of the Internet also can locate multiple sources of the episodes after their initial release. Hence, after initial release a producer no longer has control of the sequence in which the episodes can be viewed by a user. Consequently, the user encounters the risk of watching an episode out of sequence. Watching an episode out of sequence reduces the value of a previous episode or a subsequent episode due to the user having missed events from a previous episode (resulting in user confusion of events in the out-of-sequence episode). The out-of-sequence episode also can present “spoilers”, namely an unexpected event to a storyline that has not yet been adequately developed because the user had missed events in the previous episode.